Illumination

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter here - I was looking for fast-n-furious action with this one. Be afraid, be very afraid.
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Giles peered into the stony maw of the sleeping demon. He frowned, taking in the decor of the rest of the room while the teens set the spell into place. He had a bad feeling about this...

Acathla was a demon whose very power the destruction of reality - ergo, the perfect place to cast a spell that distorts it. Still, the air seemed... charged. Almost as though the vampire weren't quite gone... and despite his efforts, Giles could find no reason to believe this.

Sighing, the Watcher took a seat next to Willow. "Willow, this spell is incredibly dangerous. You could–"

"Get sucked into the void between realities, turned inside out, or enter an entirely new dimension," she finished, smiling morosely at him. "I know, Giles."

He nodded, curt. "Alright, then."

"Actually, I'd say not."

The voice took the white hats by surprise. Oz leapt up, crossbow at the ready; Cordelia brandished a stake and Xander held a cross before the demon; Giles rose, a vial of holy water at the ready.

"Begin the spell!" the man instructed the young witch.

Willow began reading from the massive tome: "Between time and space, lost in the void..." As she chanted she lit the candles arranged in the form of a pentagram. Closing her eyes, she lit the herbs in the cauldron before her. Breathing deeply she continued: "Apart form the world, safe and controlled..."

The vampire advanced, grinning. "You know, I always wondered what a witch tastes like..."


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John looked warily at the dingy motel strip. The main office was lined in a wallpaper from almost sixty years ago, and apart from the truck outside - which belonged to one Daniel Jones, trucker - there was no clue to the existence of anything out of the ordinary.

A young woman in a flower-print dress and a beige, dirty apron stepped up to the counter from the kitchen behind her. She smiled warmly at John and Alice, and opened the ledger. "Room for two?"

John opened his mouth to protest, but Alice took the lead.

"Why, how did you know?" Alice drawled in a faux southern accent. "Danny an' I just got hitched, an' we were looking fer a nice place ta stay."

The girl smiled. "Well, you can stay here, for thirty dollars a night, but you might want to drop the southern accent; folks around these parts are sensitive about the way they sound." Alice was taken aback. "Room 17," she said as she handed them the key. "And don't mind the folks in room 14."

John frowned. "Room 14?"

The girl nodded. "They were makin' a fuss all night. You'd think they'd keep a lover's spat quiet, bein' queer and all."

John and Alice exchanged a look. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind," he replied.

As they left, Alice moved closer to him. "Think it's Dean?"

She shrugged. "Only one way to find out." He popped open the back of his truck to reveal a slew of weapons.

Alice whistled. "Gee, John, planning on taking out King Kong?"

He grabbed a large shotgun. "Never know."



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Xander hit the floor, hard. His side ached, and he was sure he broke a rib - or at least bruised it. The cross hit the wall, and ricocheted, now a good eight feet away from the mortal. A shadow drew his attention back to the vampire.

"Does it hurt if I do this?" It asked, bringing it's foot down.

Xander rolled to the side, ignoring his pain in the face of danger. "Oz!" He shouted. "Get it!"

A bolt fired from the crossbow - and lodged itself in the wall next to the demon. "Gotta do better than that," he hissed, and lunged for the lycanthrope.

"Like this?" The Giles asked, tossing a vial of the sanctified liquid at the beast.

It hissed as flesh was eaten by the mystical properties of the Holy Water. Xander hobbled over to the cover of his friends, the cross now retrieved. "How close is she?" He glanced at Willow, safely behind a living wall of her friends.

"Close, I think," Giles replied. "Just another few minutes."

Xander nodded, his face grim. "You got it."


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The door to the tiny motel room blew apart, littering the inside with debris and sunlight. Angelus, naked, rolled off the bed, hissing as the sun touched his flesh. He peered over the edge, to see a man standing with a shotgun and a woman at his side.

"What did you do to my son?!" The man raged. He advanced on the vampire. Angelus ducked again. The man shot again. "Where is he?!"

"John, over there!" The woman indicated to where Dean now huddled, broken and naked.

Angelus took the moment to shield himself with a blanket, and leap onto the man with the gun. Both men hit the ground hard, the shotgun flying against the wall, and the vampire crushing the man's chest. He grinned at the invader at the sickening crack of ribs.

"You know, I always had a thing for killing families."

The man spit into his face. "Go to hell."


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Giles looked nervously around the room. Willow's spell was reaching peak, and almost ready to trap the vampire - but the immediate effects on the environment were entirely unexpected. Winds raged through the room, making it difficult for either the vampire or the mortals to see or move; lighting struck from outside, illuminating the room in brief flashes; and the now-dormant Acathla began to glow faintly. The Watcher new the instant the conditions began that this was not a good idea.

Still, he stood his ground, unmoving, and praying that the witch new what she was doing - or that their collective karma was enough to survive this.


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Angelus looked around confused at the room darkened. The woman in the doorway hit the ground, nearly struck by rogue lightning. She crawled toward Dean, but found that a sudden, inexplicable gust of wind was keeping her from him.


The vampire walked over to her, unimpeded by the winds, bent down, and snapped her neck easily. He then grabbed hold of his prized new pet, as the bolt of lightning hit them both.


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A bolt of lightning struck the vampire in the chest. With a harrowing screech and a blaze of light, he was gone.

A second flash deposited two beings to the stone floor: a young man with dark hair, curled into himself; and Angelus.

The vampire rose, nude, and looked at his surroundings. "Home," he whispered.

Giles' jaw clenched. With a man rush, he lunged for the statue of Acathla - too little, too late, as Angelus noted this action, and using his advantage in both speed and power ripped the stone head off the body, slamming into the wall.

Giles stopped, rage suffusing his features. "You should have stayed in Hell."

Angelus smiled, and approached the Watcher until their faces were inches apart. "Tell Jenny I say hi." He walked past the aging man.

"Tell her for me. Oz!"

The teen fired a single bolt - which the vampire sidestepped. Ge ripped the bolt from the wall and threw it back. It hit Willow directly in the side of the neck.

"Be careful with those things, someone could get hurt."

The group rushed to the witches' side, each glaring at the vampire with a promise of death to come. He simply smiled at them, picked up his pet human, and walked out into the calm Sunnydale night.


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John looked up, sure that blood was pooling in his lungs; not that the thing above him cared. He grimaced, and wheezed: "Sammy?"